Marketing Effectively: Getting to Know Your Customers

Marketing Effectively: Getting to Know Your Customers
To market your business effectively, you have to KNOW your
target audience and what problems they face. People don't
buy things. They buy solutions to problems; they want to
fulfill a desire or meet a need. It should be specific and
real...AND you should care about their problem. Examples of
powerful motivators include making money, saving money,
having more time, reducing effort, decreasing stress,
increasing comfort, good health, being fit, losing weight,
romance, and praise.

So, what are your customers trying to figure out, overcome,
fix, heal, or prevent? What is their biggest concern on a
daily basis? How are they feeling about their problem? And
what unique solution do you provide to their problem? Don't
get sidetracked by describing your service or product -
stay focused on solving their problem.

How do you want your target audience to feel when you
provide your services/products? Trust? Motivation?
Inspiration? More knowledgeable? Begin to think about the
emotions you want to evoke in your target audience and the
lasting impression you want make.

Let's take an example. Say you are a financial planner who
focuses on working with new parents to invest money for
their infant's future college payment. You might say that
their problem is not having enough money right now to pay
for their child's education. They feel worried and scared
that they won't have enough, confused about how to make the
right investment choice, and committed to sending their
child to a good school. You are going to help them to
create a secure future for their child. With your planning
services, they will feel more in control, confident, and
secure.

By focusing on this part of your marketing planning, it
will make all of your marketing messages easier because you
understand exactly what motivates your target audience and
the result they get from working with you.

You can talk to your customers, either current or past.
Take them out for coffee and ask for their assistance. Most
people are flattered to be asked for their opinion. Ask
them some of the above questions: Why did you need my
services? What were you struggling with before you sought
my help? What was the biggest improvement in your business
since we worked together? And so on.

Interview several people about their particular challenges,
needs, and problems. Try to get enough data to help see the
trends among your target audience. By tailoring your
marketing to solving your customers' problems, you will
position your company to be magnetic to your customers.

----------------------------------------------------
Wendy Maynard publishes MAVEN MARKETING, a weekly marketing
ezine for business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs.
If you're ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract
customers, and have more fun, subscribe at
http://www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine_3.html

How To Start Your Own Baby Food Business Part #4: Understanding Your Market

How To Start Your Own Baby Food Business Part #4: Understanding Your Market
Understanding your market is critical. As early as
possible, before you launch your business, I encourage you
to survey moms in your area to learn about their values,
buying habits, and infant feeding rituals. An easy way to
do this is to use an online survey tool (there are dozens
out there) to create your survey. Then send an email to
all the moms you know, post a notice on a local mommy
message board, or send an email to an online Yahoo! Groups
community that is targeted to parents.

Not only will this help you learn about your target market
but it will give you valuable data that you can use when
discussing your business with the local media.

Here are some of the questions and answer options that we
used for the first Sprouts Baby Food survey years ago.

How old is your baby?

Which of the following best describes you?
Stay-at-home mom
Working mom

If you are a working mom, which of the following best
describes your childcare support?
n/a
in-home childcare/nanny
daycare center
family member

Are you concerned about food allergies?
Yes
No

Does your baby have any food allergies?
Yes
No

FEEDING YOUR BABY

Did you breastfeed your baby?
Yes
No

How long did/do you plan to breast feed your baby?
0-3 months
4-6 months
7-9 months
10-12 months
13-18 months
19-24 months
2+ years

How old was your baby when you began feeding him/her solid
foods?
3 months
4 months
5 months
6 months
7 months
8 months
9 months
10 months
11 months
12 months
Older

Why did you begin your baby on solids?
Advice from doctor
Advice from book
Advise from website/web forum
Advice from family member
Advice from another mom
Baby seemed ready
Other

Which of the following is most often your source for
feeding and childcare information?
doctor
book
website/web forum
family member
other moms

Did your doctor give you enough information to help you
feel confident about making feeding decisions for your baby?
Yes
No

What is the most frustrating thing about introducing new
foods to your baby?

WHAT YOU FEED YOUR BABY

Which best describes the food that you most frequently give
your baby?
Home-made baby food
Traditional store-bought baby food (jarred)
Organic store-bought baby food (jarred)
Organic store-bought baby food (frozen)
Pureed table foods
Catered baby food (such as Sprouts)

Do you regularly give your baby formula?
Yes
No
Never

Which of the following baby food brands do you most
frequently use (please check all that apply).
n/a ' I don't give my baby commercial baby food
Gerber Baby Food
Heinz Baby Food
Beech Nut Baby Food
Earth's Best
Gerber Organic
Organic Baby
Homemade Baby
Bohemian Baby
Happy Baby
TotPots
Mom Made
Evie's Organic Edibles
Plum Organics
Healthy Times
Bright Beginnings

If you DO NOT make your own baby food, please give us the
reasons why. (check all that apply)
n/a ' I make my own baby food.
I think store-bought food is as good as what I could make
at home.
I would like to make my own baby food but I don't have the
time.

If you DO make your own baby food, please give us the
reasons why. (check all that apply)
I think that fresh is the best.
I like to choose my own ingredients.
I think that store-bought baby food contains a lot of
sugars, starches, and fillers.
I don't like that store-bought food is made to sit on store
shelves for 2+ years.
Store-bought food lacks variety.

Is price a factor when feeding your baby?
No ' I want the best for my baby, no matter what the cost.
Not really ' I'll pay more for better quality foods.
Kind of ' It depends. Sometimes.
Yes ' We are on a budget and can't afford to spend a great
deal of baby food.
Yes ' I just don't believe in paying a lot for baby food.

Do you read the ingredient labels on baby food in the store?
n/a ' I make my own baby food.
No
Yes, always
Yes, but only for baby food

If yes, what are you looking for on the labels?

On average, how much do you pay for baby food (per jar)?
$.10 - $.49
$.50 - $.99
$1.00 - $1.49
$1.50 - $1.99
$2.00 - $2.49
$2.50 - $2.99
$3.00 ' more

How much would you pay for quality, freshly-made, organic
baby food?
$.10 - $.49
$.50 - $.99
$1.00 - $1.49
$1.50 - $1.99
$2.00 - $2.49
$2.50 - $2.99
$3.00 ' more

On average, how many jars of baby food do you purchase each
week?
0-5
6-10
11-15
16-20
21-25
More

RESTURANTS

Before having a baby, how many times did you eat out per
month?
3-5 times per month
1-2 times per month
Once every 2 months
Other

After having a baby, how many times do you eat out per
month?
3-5 times per month
1-2 times per month
Once every 2 months
Other

Since having a baby, is "kid friendliness" (kid menu, high
chars, toys, etc. ) a key factor when choosing a restaurant?
Yes
No

Would you be more likely to frequent a good restaurant that
had healthy, organic menu selections for your baby?
Yes
No

When dining out at a restaurant do you.....?
Bring baby food along
Feed the baby off of your plate (mashing something up)
Order something off the menu for the baby (then mash it up)
Other

Additional comments on dining out with your baby.

----------------------------------------------------
Mischelle (Schelly) Weedman-Davis left her 15-year
high-tech career to become a stay-at-home mom but later
became the founder of Sprouts Baby Food, Inc. She now uses
her talents to support her husband's Seattle law firm, the
Davis Law Group so she can spend more time with her family.
http://www.InjuryTrialLawyer.com . But she remains
committed to infant nutrition and helping others that want
to start their own baby food business.

Festive and Effective Holiday Marketing Ideas

Festive and Effective Holiday Marketing Ideas
In addition to being the "Season of Sweets," the period of
time between Halloween and New Year's Day presents a
wonderful opportunity for your company to thank your
customers. It also is a time that you can drive new
business to you. Here is a list of easy and effective
marketing ideas to help you promote your business for the
holidays.

1. Send a Card: Send a holiday card to all of your
customers - depending on your target audience, it can be
for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or simply "Seasons
Greetings." You can also send a Happy New Year card. But
don't stop there. Don't forget about your vast referral
base. Be sure to send business holiday cards to your
friends, family, associates, and vendors.

2. Send your database a gift: Hopefully, you have a list of
both clients and prospects. Whether these individuals have
purchased from you or not, treat them well. Take the
holiday season as an opportunity to send them a gift. It
can be as simple as a $5 gift card to Starbucks. Small
gestures are what impress people - they work to keep
customers loyal and to convert prospects to customers.

3. Offer a "Something of the Month" club: People are always
looking for unique gifts to give. Why not help them out and
create ongoing cash flow for your company? You can do this
type of gift series with almost anything. Seriously. Did
you know there is a Bacon of the Month club? You could sell
CDs that you record each month, massages, dinners, jelly,
or even a teleseminar series. With a little creative
brainstorming, I'm certain that any business could develop
this type of program.

4. Bundle items as a holiday theme: Sell holiday specials
to entice people to buy bundles of products or services.
Instead of selling single items, offer a theme. For
example, a financial planning company could put together a
New Year's Planning Kit that includes a book, tax software,
and a one-hour consultation. A spa could put together a
Stress-Free Holiday package of a steam bath, facial, and
body lotion.

5. Give a coupon or discount: As both a gift to your
customers and a way to boost your seasonal revenue, why not
offer a discount or send out a coupon that promotes one or
more of your services or products. This could be for a
report, a CD, a session, or a special program. Again - be
creative! People love discounts.

6. Offer a holiday special: You can encourage larger
purchases by offering a holiday special like Buy Two and
Get a Third Item for Free. Here is a different variation on
this same strategy: Tell your customers when they purchase
a certain amount, the will get something for free. For
instance, Buy $100 worth of products and get a free CD.

These are just a few ways that you can both thank your
customers and offer them something special for the
holidays. These marketing strategies also help build
customer loyalty, convert prospects into customers, and
help to bring cash flow into your company. Best of success
to your business!

----------------------------------------------------
Wendy Maynard publishes MAVEN MARKETING, a weekly marketing
ezine for business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs.
If you're ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract
customers, and have more fun, subscribe at
http://www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine_3.html

How To Fold 30000 Sheets Of Paper In Just 60 Minutes

How To Fold 30000 Sheets Of Paper In Just 60 Minutes
Does your business regularly send out bulk mail? If you
distribute bulk mail to existing and potential customers on
a frequent basis, in however small a quantity, a folding
machine will prove to be a highly cost-effective bonus to
your business.

Since the Royal Mail introduced Pricing in Proportion in
August 2006, the cost of sending mail has been calculated
by size and shape, as well as weight. This has since
resulted in businesses working to find cost-effective ways
to send bulk mail, which is where a folding machine comes
into its own.

Folding machines are available across the price spectrum
and with a wide range of specifications and capabilities.
However much mail your business sends out, you will find
that sourcing the right folding machine for your needs will
be saving you money within months.

The cost of your folding machine will soon be outweighed by
savings in a two-fold area ' saving both staff time spent
folding letters, while also folding your post to the
smallest and cheapest size according to Royal Mail's
Pricing in Proportion policy. A folding machine that meets
your requirements will be paying for itself within a short
time and is surely an inevitable choice for any company
sending out bulk mail.

Folding machines are available across the price spectrum
and range in size from small desktop models to large-scale,
high-volume folding machines, which do require more space
but are also very well-designed and still surprisingly
compact for the job that they do.

Starter machines are perfect for a small business sending
out occasional bulk mail in restricted quantities. They are
usually streamlined, with a modern design which means they
are an unobtrusive desk-top addition to the workplace and
are highly affordable, costing little more than a small
desk-top printer. They can take a paper-size of up to A4,
usually have non-skid feet fitted and some folding machines
are capable of folding up to 30 letters a minute or 1,800
sheets per hour.

Bigger and more substantial folding machines are usually
equivalent in size to a large desktop printer and are
easily accommodated in the main area of any office. Taking
paper up to A4 in size, these machines are capable of
folding up to 155 sheets per minute and can execute a
number of different folding techniques.

Jumping up the specification range the more robust pieces
of folding equipment for the medium-sized company in the
business of regularly sending out bulk mail can take a
paper size up to and including A3 and usually have a
feed-table that can be loaded with up to 500 sheets at any
one time. These machines folds paper at a maximum rate of
9,000 sheets per hour, and can be easily cleaned.

For those companies in the business of sending out very
large quantities of bulk mail, then you require a highly
user-friendly machine which has a modular design, and so
can be built with some of your specific requirements in
mind. Some folding machines can process a staggering 30,000
sheets per hour and no business involved in bulk mailing
can afford to be without this serious piece of equipment.

----------------------------------------------------
Learn more about the wide selection of folding machines
available to you. Simply visit -
http://www.print-finishing-paper-handling.co.uk/folding/inde
x.htm

Property Management 101

Property Management 101
The idea of property management (sometimes referred to as
3rd party management) has been around since the dawn of
time. But, before property management was a job or career,
a title or a company, property management has been an
action that many people attended to around the land or
buildings that they owned themselves or leased from someone
else. Property management can mean different things to
different people. For some, property management might mean
keeping their own property safe, secure and pleasant to the
eye. For others, property management could mean paying
someone else to make sure your property is in tip top
shape. Some types of properties that may need property
management are; houses, condos, duplexes, town homes,
apartments, shopping centers, malls, offices buildings,
airports and public transportation buildings, hospitals and
many more. Property management is very similar to the role
of management in any business.

One important role that property management has is to act
as the middle person between the tenant and the property
management landlord. Property management should provide the
property management landlord with a sense of security,
knowing that everyday needs from the renter can be resolved
without involving said property management landlord
unnecessarily. Hand and hand with that security, the tenant
can be assured that the property will be maintained to some
set of standards which can be reviewed with the property
management team before an agreement is reached. Property
management is a delicate balance between pleasing the
property management landlord and keeping the renter happy
as well. The task of property management can prove to be
harder than it sounds. Maintaining an open line of
communication in property management and being able to
address the needs of both property management parties will
make a successful property management business. Other
duties for property management but are not limited to;
collecting rent, posting and showing vacancies,
maintenance issues, evictions, failure to pay rent issues,
harassment, and background checks on the application forms.
It is very important that a profitable property management
staff or team be knowledgeable in the current laws of the
city, state and county concerning tenant rights vs.
landlord rights. Be sure your property management team is
up to date on current property management codes, and other
items that will benefit your property management business.
Getting caught up in property management legal matters is
no way to run a property management business.

The following is the definition of property
managers/property management as posted by Wikipedia on
their website. Property management is a person or firm
responsible for the operation of a real estate property for
a fee, when the owner of the property cannot or is not
interested in managing the property themselves. The
property manager or the property management company has a
primary responsibility to the landlord and a secondary
responsibility to the tenant. Relationships the property
manager or property management team have with the landlord
and with the tenant are crucial in forming the expectations
of both parties to the lease since both parties will seek
and expect certain rights and benefits out of it. Owner's
expectations from the property manager/ property management
team are to carry out the owner's instructions, control
costs and maximize revenue to maintain a stabilized cash
flow as a return on capital invested, exercise control over
the building to safeguard the capital invested, provide a
duty of care through proper maintenance of the building, to
be professional and well informed, enhance the value of the
property by making improvements that will increase its
market value, retain and enhance pride of ownership. The
tenant's expectations from the property manager/ property
management team are the "quiet enjoyment" 'assurance of the
use and enjoyment of the premises for the intended purposes
without interference from the landlord, comfort—a
living environment properly heated, cooled and ventilated
with as many amenities as possible compatible with the
rental level, security and safety—to live or work in
a building in which there are no inherent defects or
conditions that might be hazardous to health or to
property, status—accommodation and facilities that
meet social-economic and cultural standards for the
tenant's and their guest.

Property management can be a very lucrative business when
handled correctly. Property management takes an organized,
well communicated, and dedicated individual or staff to be
able to pull off a successful property management company.
Typically property management companies will charge their
landlords a percentage of the gross rent collected each
month. This percentage for property management fees can
range from 3 to 10% depending on the property management
market. Sometimes a flat fee is more appropriate when the
property is a condominium or a type of cooperative complex
for property management. Some states might require that
property managers have a property management license or a
real estate license to be able to claim the title of
property manager or property management business.

A cousin to property management is facility management.
Facility management is like property management but the
focus is the management of buildings and services. One
definition from a large facility/property management
association says, "A profession that encompasses multiple
disciplines to ensure functionality of the built
environment by integrating people, place, process and
technology." Australians prefer the term: Commercial
Services to property management, this term replaces
facilities management in some organizations. Besides
keeping the property up to date, commercial services can
also include duties such as waste disposal, parking,
security, landscaping and more.

A homeowner may provide his or her own property management,
but property management is not limited to the duties of
house cleaning, lawn care and landscaping, building
maintenance, trash and waste disposal and interior upkeep.
Property management can be all of these, and can be hired
out to a professional that can provide better property
management services than the homeowner can or would provide
themselves. These property management services come with a
price and if the homeowner is willing to pay for outside
property management, the sky is the limit on what they can
have managed. Some property management companies even
manage home owners associations (HOAs). In this instance
the property management company is the middle person
between the homeowners and the land developer. Once the
developer has completed his contracted tasks, the
neighborhood is then turned over to the HOA. The property
management company may stay on board for a fee to help the
HOA. A landlord may also provide property management
services himself or have it hired out to a property
management company. A large company or corporation might
have internal structures in place to provide property
management on site or they may choose to hire an outside
property management company to provide the property
management services that they would need on a day to day
basis. Both of these operations are a reasonable and
effective way to tackle the issue of property management on
a large scale.

With the world of technology growing everyday, it makes
perfect sense to have applicable property management
software and property management computer systems that deal
with property management in place to help with property
management or facility management. You can have your home
wired and programmed to turn the lights on and off when
entering a room. Constant temperature and humidity levels
can be monitored along with major appliance functions.
Watering of lawns and security systems has become high tech
and available to the everyday homeowner who wants property
management. Some passenger vehicles now include a "remote"
that when programmed can turn the lights on, turn the TV on
your favorite station and more, all from the comforts of
your car. Heaven forbid you will have to walk into your
dark and quite home. Home builders, architects and
engineers saw the potential for using large scale property
management ideas in the home. Beyond the home, large
commercial properties, computer aided facility management
(CAFM) has been a natural progression of the marriage
between technology and facility/ property management. In
the late 1980's CAFM evolved to allow larger properties to
manage their property management sites more efficiently.
Most often, CAFM systems track and maintain; floor plans,
LAN and telecom information, business continuity and safety
information, workplace assets, employee and occupancy data,
building and property information and space characteristics
and usage. Being able to supervise the goings on of your
with a property management company in an efficient and well
structured way will help your property management bottom
line.

If you need information about property management, the
internet is a great place to start.

----------------------------------------------------
Property Management 101
http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/